《敦刻爾克》：生死一線間的苦難、生存和抵抗

One of the most indelible images in “Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan’s brilliant new film, is of a British plane in flames. The movie recounts an early, harrowing campaign in World War II that took place months after Germany invaded Poland and weeks after Hitler’s forces started rolling into the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. The plane, having glided to a stop, has been defiantly set ablaze by the pilot to avoid its being captured. It’s an image of unambiguous defeat but also an emblem of resistance and a portent of the ghastly conflagrations still to come.

在克里斯托弗·諾蘭(Christopher Nolan)的精彩新片《敦刻爾克》(Dunkirk)中，一架燃燒的英國飛機是最令人難忘的畫面之一。電影講述了二戰(zhàn)初期的一場慘烈的戰(zhàn)役，時間是在德國入侵波蘭數月后，幾周前希特勒的部隊剛剛開始進入荷蘭、比利時、盧森堡和法國?；璧娘w機停了下來，為了避免淪為敵人的戰(zhàn)利品，飛行員毅然放火燒毀了它。這幅畫面標志著毫無異議的失敗，但也象征著抵抗，預示著即將到來的慘烈大戰(zhàn)。

It’s a characteristically complex and condensed vision of war in a movie that is insistently humanizing despite its monumentality, a balance that is as much a political choice as an aesthetic one. And “Dunkirk” is big — in subject, reach, emotion and image. Mr. Nolan shot and mostly finished it on large-format film (unusual in our digital era), which allows details to emerge in great scale. Overhead shots of soldiers scattered across a beach convey an unnerving isolation — as if these were the last souls on earth, terminally alone, deserted. (Seen on a television, they would look like ants.) Film also enriches the texture of the image; it draws you to it, which is crucial given the minimalist dialogue.

在雖然宏大卻堅持人性視角的《敦刻爾克》里，這是典型的復雜而又洗練的戰(zhàn)爭場景，這種平衡既是出于美學考慮，也是一種政治選擇。而且，無論就主題、影響力、情感還是場面而言，《敦刻爾克》都是一部“大”片。諾蘭拍片時主要用的是大畫幅膠片(在我們的數字時代顯得非比尋常)，從而得以呈現大量細節(jié)。散布在海灘上的士兵的俯拍鏡頭，傳遞著一種令人不安的孤絕——這些人仿佛是地球上最后的生靈，極度孤單，完全被遺棄。(如果放在電視屏幕上，他們看起來會像螞蟻一樣。)大畫幅膠片還讓畫面顯得更有質感;你會被畫面深深吸引，鑒于對話少得可憐，這一點非常重要。

The movie is based on a campaign that began in late May 1940 in the French port city of Dunkirk, where some 400,000 Allied soldiers — including more than 200,000 members of the British Expeditionary Force, the British army in Western Europe — were penned in by the Germans. The British, faced with the capture or possible annihilation of their troops, initiated a seemingly impossible rescue. Named Operation Dynamo, this mission has assumed near-mythic status in British history and been revisited in books and onscreen; it shows up in “Mrs. Miniver,” a 1942 Hollywood weepie about British pain and perseverance in the war meant to encourage American support for the Allies.

這部電影以一場始于1940年5月的戰(zhàn)役為藍本。在法國港口城市敦刻爾克，約40萬盟軍被德國人包圍，其中包括20余萬英國遠征軍，也就是駐扎在西歐的英國軍隊。在其軍隊要么會成為俘虜，要么可能被殲滅之際，英國人發(fā)起了看似不可能成功的救援。這場代號為“發(fā)電機計劃”的行動，是英國歷史上近乎神話的存在，已經被人在書本中和屏幕上反復重溫;它曾出現在1942年的好萊塢催淚片《忠勇之家》(Mrs. Miniver)里，那部電影描繪了戰(zhàn)爭陰云之下英國人的傷痛和堅忍，旨在鼓勵美國人為同盟國提供支持。

War movies tend to play out along familiar lines, including lump-in-the throat home-front tales like “Mrs. Miniver.” “Dunkirk” takes place in battle, but it, too, is a story of suffering and survival. Mr. Nolan largely avoids the bigger historical picture (among other things, the reason these men are fighting is a given) as well as the strategizing on the front and in London, where the new prime minister, Winston Churchill, was facing the horrifying possibility of diminished military muscle. Churchill is heard from, in a fashion, but never seen. Mr. Nolan instead narrows in on a handful of men who are scrambling and white-knuckling their way into history on the sea, in the air and on the ground.

戰(zhàn)爭片往往有著人們熟悉的套路，其中包括《忠勇之家》這樣令人哽咽欲泣的后方故事?！抖乜虪柨恕分v的是戰(zhàn)場上的事情，但它也是關于苦難和生存的故事。諾蘭基本沒去呈現更廣闊的歷史畫卷(這些男人上戰(zhàn)場的原因以及其他一些東西是基本事實)，也沒有贅述前線或倫敦制定戰(zhàn)略的情形。當時，身在倫敦的新首相溫斯頓·丘吉爾(Winston Churchill)面臨著英國軍事力量銳減的駭人可能性。片中提到了丘吉爾，但本人始終沒有出現。諾蘭只是著重刻畫了少數幾個人，他們在海、陸、空三線緊急采取行動，在歷史中奮力寫下自己的一筆。

By turns intimate and sweeping, the film opens with six soldiers walking away from the camera down a spookily deserted street. Their bodies are shown in full, head to toe, and they are flanked by low buildings, the sort that now look so charming in touristic photographs. Slips of paper swirl around the men like autumn leaves. A few grab at the papers. One tries slurping water from a nearby garden hose; another pokes a hand through an open window, searching for a smoke. Still another reads one of the papers, which shows a map of the surrounding area encircled by arrows and ominous words of warning in English. He then crumples it, unbuckles his belt and begins to squat.

影片開頭，鏡頭時而貼近時而拉遠，六名軍人沿著一條荒蕪陰森的街道漸行漸遠。他們的身體被從頭到腳完完完整地呈現在銀幕上;他們兩旁的低矮建筑，并不像旅游照片中那樣吸引人。紙片像秋葉般在他們周圍打旋。有幾個人伸手去抓紙片。一個人試圖用花園的水管喝水;另一個人把手伸進一扇開著的窗戶找煙抽。還有一個人看了看其中一張紙片，那上邊是周邊地區(qū)的地圖，標著很多箭頭，還有用英語寫就的不詳的警告。他隨后將紙片揉皺，解開腰帶，蹲下身去。

It’s a somewhat perplexing, awkwardly funny moment — this is a manifestly serious situation, and you’re about to watch a man defecate. You don’t know whether to laugh, but before you decide, shots ring out and the soldiers start running, the camera quickly following. The haunted emptiness is suddenly filled with the sounds of frantic escape and whizzing bullets. And then the men begin falling, one, two, three, until just the unbuckling one remains, scrambling first over a gate and soon onto a beach where thousands of other soldiers are massed and waiting. He silently takes in the extraordinary scene and then hustles over to a dune to begin undoing his belt again.

這是一個多少有些令人困惑，同時又尷尬滑稽的時刻——形勢萬分嚴峻，你卻即將看到一個人要方便。你不知道該不該發(fā)笑，但還沒等你做出決定，槍聲就響起了，士兵們開始奔跑，鏡頭快速追逐著他們的身影。詭異的虛空中突然充斥著他們瘋狂逃跑的聲音和子彈嗖嗖飛過的聲音。接著他們開始倒地，一個，兩個，三個，直到只剩下那個剛剛解開腰帶的人，他先是爬上一扇門，很快來到一片沙灘上，其他數以千計的軍人正聚在那里等待。他默默消化這驚人的景象，然后急匆匆地跑向一個沙丘，又開始解腰帶。

Scarcely a word has been uttered up to this point, yet much has been expressed: isolation; danger; desperation; fear; relief; and sheer, extreme bodily need and effort. Throughout this de facto prologue, Mr. Nolan emphasizes the concrete details, making you acutely aware of the fine-grained textures — the sores and embedded dirt on a man’s hands — and every resonant sound: the dribbling of water, the fluttering of paper, and the sharp crack and mechanical buzzing of rifle fire that turns into muffled thuds when bullets enter bodies. By the time the surviving soldier reaches the beach, you are already closely acquainted with his heavy breathing, wild fumbling and clumsy, chaotic running.

直到此時，影片中幾乎沒出現任何臺詞，卻表達了很多內容：孤立;危險;絕望;恐懼;解脫;以及純粹是身體方面的需要和努力。通過這個相當于序幕的段落，諾蘭強調了具體細節(jié)，讓你真切注意到細粒度的質感——傷口和嵌入一個男人手部皮膚的污垢——以及片中回蕩著的每一個聲音：滴水聲;紙片飄飛聲;用步槍射擊時的尖銳爆破聲和槍械本身的聲音，會在子彈射入身體之際變成人倒地時的悶響。當幸存的士兵抵達沙灘的時候，你已經非常熟悉他那沉重的呼吸，狂亂的摸索，以及奔跑時笨拙、凌亂的腳步。

Soon, the scene switches to another port, where a British teenager, George (Barry Keoghan), is helping a father and son (Mark Rylance and Tom Glynn-Carney) unload a small yacht that’s been requisitioned for the Dunkirk mission. The three men instead set sail on their own, joining a civilian fleet — a rousing, motley armada of tugs, steamers, ferries and so on — that’s racing across the Channel. A third, astounding narrative section soon opens in the air, where three British Spitfire planes are quickly engaged in battle against German planes headed for Dunkirk, racing through the vast canopy and bobbing under clouds as the sun flashes, temporarily blinding them.

場景很快切換到另一個港口，英國少年喬治(巴里·基奧甘[Barry Keoghan]飾)正在幫助一對父子(馬克·萊恩斯[Mark Rylance]與湯姆·格林-卡尼[Tom Glynn-Carney]飾)從一艘被敦刻爾克行動征用的小游艇上卸貨。三個男人改變主意，自己開船，加入了一支穿越英吉利海峽的平民船隊——這支充滿激情的隊伍由拖船、汽船、渡輪等各式各樣的船只組成。第三個驚人的敘事部分很快在空中展開，三架英國的噴火戰(zhàn)斗機迅速與趕往敦刻爾克的德國飛機交上了火，飛機在遼闊的天空中劃過，在云層之間穿行，閃爍的陽光令飛行員陷入片刻的失明。

Mr. Nolan’s elastic approach to narrative works beautifully in “Dunkirk,” which oscillates among its three sections, each largely taking place in distinct locations in different time frames. The events on the beach — called the Mole for the breakwater that’s used as a dock — unfold during one week. The events on the sea occur in one day, while the air scenes transpire in an hour. The locations and the time periods are announced onscreen. At first the dividing lines aren’t always obvious as Mr. Nolan cuts from daytime scenes on the ground to those in the sea and in the air, a slight merging of space and especially of time that underlines the enormity of a fight seemingly without end.

諾蘭的彈性敘事在《敦刻爾克》效果奇佳，故事在三個部分之間搖擺，每個部分主要發(fā)生在不同時間段內的不同地點。海灘上的事件——這部分以被用作碼頭的防波堤為名——時間跨度為一周。海上的事件發(fā)生在一天之內，空中的場面則發(fā)生在一小時之內。事件發(fā)生的位置和時間段在銀幕上以字幕顯示出來。起初，諾蘭在地面、海上與空中的白天場景之間切換，此時三個部分之間的分隔并不是非常明顯，時空有輕微的融合，特別是時間，這強調出戰(zhàn)爭是多么龐大，仿佛沒有盡頭。

Once Mr. Nolan begins switching between day and night, the lines dividing the three narrative segments mostly sharpen. Even as each section — with its individual dramas and perils — comes closer into view, Mr. Nolan keeps them all in dynamic play with one another. Some of this he achieves with stark visual echoes, as when water rushing into a downed Spitfire engulfs the pilot and elsewhere a soldier nearly drowns. (Tom Hardy plays the most critically important pilot, while a sympathetic Jack Lowden takes on a critical support role.) At one point, Mr. Nolan pulls the three narrative strands tightly together, creating a tremendous, enveloping sense of bone-deep dread.

一旦諾蘭開始在白天與黑夜之間切換，劃分三個敘事部分的界線往往就會清晰起來。每個部分都有自己的戲劇性與危險事件，盡管每一個部分都在向觀眾貼近，諾蘭依然在它們之間保持著動態(tài)平衡，這在一定程度上是通過視覺效果上的鮮明呼應做到的，比如，當水涌入墜落的噴火戰(zhàn)機，吞沒飛行員時，另一個地方也有一個士兵幾乎被淹死。(片中湯姆·哈迪[Tom Hardy]飾演是最重要的飛行員，惹人喜愛的杰克·勞登[Jack Lowden]飾演一個重要配角。)在某個時刻，諾蘭將三個敘事線索緊密地拉在一起，使觀眾沉浸在深入骨髓的巨大恐懼之中。

“Dunkirk” is a World War II movie, one told through soldiers, their lived and near-death experiences and their bodies under siege. Names are generally irrelevant here; on the beach — and in the sea and air — what counts are rank, unit, skill and the operation, although more important is survival, making it through another attack and somehow avoiding exploding bombs. Mr. Nolan’s emphasis on the visceral reality of Dunkirk leaves much unsaid; even in some opening explanatory text, the enemy isn’t identified as Nazi Germany. The soldiers, of course, know exactly who they are fighting and perhaps even why, but in the field the enemy is finally the unnamed stranger trying to kill them.

《敦刻爾克》是一部關于第二次世界大戰(zhàn)的電影，它以士兵的視角，通過他們生死一線的經歷與遭受圍困的身體來展開敘述。影片中的名字通常無關緊要;在海灘上——以及在海上與空中——重要的是軍銜、小隊、技能與行動，但更重要的是生存，是挺過下一波攻擊，想辦法躲開轟炸。諾蘭強調敦刻爾克的本質現實，因此也留下了很多東西沒有去講明;甚至在一些開場的解釋文字中，敵人也沒有被確定為納粹德國。士兵們當然知道他們正在與誰戰(zhàn)斗，甚至知道他們?yōu)槭裁磻?zhàn)斗，但是在戰(zhàn)場上，敵人終究只是試圖殺死他們的無名陌生人。

The soldier who scrambles over the gate and onto the beach is called Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) in the credits, but I don’t remember hearing or reading his name. Mostly, I just thought of him as Our Boy, less because of his youth than because of the vulnerability communicated through Mr. Whitehead’s slight figure and tangible physical performance, his small and large gestures and moves: the darting, panicked eyes; the nervous, abrupt gestures; the hunched shoulders. In time, Tommy is joined by other soldiers waiting and running and ducking on the beach, the most important played by the equally fine Aneurin Barnard and the singer Harry Styles.

那名爬過大門來到海灘上的士兵，在演職員表中被稱為湯米(Tommy，菲恩·懷德海特[Fionn Whitehead]飾)，但我不記得在片中聽到或看到過他的名字。多數時候，我只是把他當成“我們的小伙子”，不僅僅是因為他的青春，更是因為他的脆弱，懷特海特單薄的身材和清晰的肢體表演，所有大大小小的姿態(tài)和動作都傳達了這一點：一閃而過的恐慌眼神;緊張而生硬的手勢;還有蜷縮起來的肩膀。隨著時間過去，湯米與其他等待的士兵們一起奔跑，在沙灘上四處躲避，其中最重要的兩個角色由阿紐林·巴納德(Aneurin Barnard)和歌手哈里·斯泰爾斯(Harry Styles)飾演，他們的表現同樣精彩。

Mr. Nolan’s unyielding emphasis on the soldiers — and on war as it is experienced rather than on how it is strategized — blurs history even as it brings the present and its wars startlingly into view. “Dunkirk” is a tour de force of cinematic craft and technique, but one that is unambiguously in the service of a sober, sincere, profoundly moral story that closes the distance between yesterday’s fights and today’s. Mr. Nolan closes that distance cinematically with visual sweep and emotional intimacy, with images of warfare and huddled, frightened survivors that together with Hans Zimmer’s score reverberate through your body. By the time that plane is burning — and a young man is looking searchingly into the future — you are reminded that the fight against fascism continues.

諾蘭堅決地強調士兵，以及戰(zhàn)爭中的體驗，而不是戰(zhàn)爭如何部署——因此影片雖然把那個時刻與那時的戰(zhàn)爭驚人地呈現出來，同時也模糊了歷史。《敦刻爾克》是電影技巧與技術的杰作，但無疑也是一個冷靜、真誠、深刻的德育故事，拉近了昨日的戰(zhàn)斗與今日的戰(zhàn)斗之間的距離。在電影語言方面，諾蘭通過視覺效果的廣度與親密的情感方式拉近這種距離的：戰(zhàn)爭的場面，擠作一團、備受驚嚇的幸存者，還有漢斯·季默(Hans Zimmer)的配樂在你體內久久回蕩。在那架飛機開始燃燒的時候——一個年輕人正用探究的眼神注視著未來——你會意識到：反法西斯的戰(zhàn)斗仍在繼續(xù)。